rtation. The settler found it difficult to reach the Legion which
he had selected for his home. Eastern supplies of salt, iron, hardware,
and fabrics and foodstuffs could be obtained only at great expense.
The fast-increasing products of the western farms--maize, wheat, meats,
livestock--could be marketed only at a cost which left a slender margin
of profit. The experiences of the late war had already proved the need
of highways as auxiliaries of national defense. It required a month to
carry goods from Baltimore to central Ohio. None the less, even before
the War of 1812, hundreds of transportation companies were running
four-horse freight wagons between the eastern and western States; and in
1820 more than three thousand wagons--practically all carrying western
products--passed back and forth between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,
transporting merchandise valued at eighteen million dollars.

Small wonder that western producer and eastern dealer alike became
interested in internal improvements; or that under the double stimulus
of private and public enterprise Indian trails fast gave way to rough
pioneer roadways, and they to carefully planned and durable turnpikes.
Long before the War of 1812, Jefferson, Gallatin, Clay, and other
statesmen had conceived of a great highway, or series of highways,
connecting the seaboard with the interior as the surest and best means
of promoting national unity and strength; and, in the act of Congress of
1802 admitting the State of Ohio, a promising beginning had been made
by setting aside five per cent of the money received from the sale of
public lands in the State for the building of roads extending eastward
to the navigable waters of Atlantic streams. In 1808 Secretary Gallatin
had presented to Congress a report calling for an outlay on internal
improvements of two million dollars of federal money a year for
ten years; and in 1811 the Government had entered upon the greatest
undertaking of its kind in the history of the country.

This enterprise was the building of the magnificent highway known to
the law as the Cumberland Road, but familiar to uncounted emigrants,
travelers, and traders--and deeply embedded in the traditions of
the Middle States and the West--as the National Road. Starting at
Cumberland, Maryland, this great artery of commerce and travel was
pushed slowly through the Alleghanies, even in the dark days of the war,
and by 1818 it was open for traffic as far west as Wh